What to Eat at a Cocktail Bar in Edgewater, Miami

Most people come to Kaona Room for the rum, not for dinner, and that is fair. We are a 45-seat tiki speakeasy hidden inside The Leinster Irish Pub, and the drinks do most of the talking. There is a short list of small plates on the menu though, and if you are spending an evening at a cocktail bar in Edgewater, Miami, knowing what to eat with your rum makes those two hours land a lot better.

Three plates, three very different drinks. Here is how we would put them together, with real prices off the menu so you can plan the night before you walk in.

The small plates at our cocktail bar in Edgewater, Miami

The food list is short on purpose. We are a bar first, and the kitchen exists to keep you upright through a second and third round, not to turn the room into a restaurant. There are three things on it, and all three are built around the same tropical palate as the drinks.

Coconut Shrimp is $16, crispy coconut crusted shrimp with mango chutney. The Poke Bowl is $18, fresh ahi tuna with avocado, seaweed, sesame and ponzu. Tropical Ceviche is $16, catch of the day in coconut milk with citrus, chili and plantain chips. You can see all three, plus every cocktail and rum flight, on the full menu.

Three pairings that actually work

Coconut Shrimp with a Jungle Bird

Fried and sweet needs something bitter on the other side of the table, and the Jungle Bird ($16) is the obvious answer. It is blackstrap rum, Campari, pineapple, lime and simple syrup, so the Campari does exactly what the mango chutney does not: it resets your palate between bites. Order this pairing first, while you are still getting your bearings in the room.

Poke Bowl with a Mai Tai

Our Mai Tai ($17) is aged Jamaican rum, lime, orange curacao, orgeat and a dark rum float. The orgeat is almond, the poke has sesame, and those two nutty notes sit together beautifully. The lime does the rest of the work against the ponzu. If you are hunting for the best Mai Tai in Miami, this is the plate to have in front of you while you decide.

Tropical Ceviche with a rum flight

The ceviche is the most delicate thing we serve, coconut milk and citrus and a little chili heat, so a big sweet tiki drink runs it over. This is where a flight earns its keep. The Agricole Experience ($32) is rhum agricole from Martinique and Guadeloupe, distilled from fresh sugarcane juice instead of molasses, which makes it grassy and floral rather than heavy. Grassy against coconut and lime is one of the better things you can do to your tongue in this city. If you want something darker to end on, the Caribbean Journey ($28) runs Jamaica, Barbados and Trinidad, and the Aged & Rare ($45) is 12, 15 and 21 year selections. Our rum collection is over 50 expressions deep, so the flights are the fastest way through it.

If you would rather stay on cocktails, the Midnight Monsoon ($17) is navy-strength rum with coconut, blue curacao, orgeat and citrus, and it has enough backbone to survive the chili. The Painkiller ($16) leans the other direction, all Pusser's Navy rum, coconut, pineapple, orange and fresh nutmeg, which doubles down on the coconut instead of cutting it. Both are good. They are just different arguments.

Finding the door, and getting a seat

Kaona Room has no sign. The entrance is somewhere inside The Leinster at 1600 NE 1st Ave, and we cannot tell you exactly where, because that would ruin the best part. Edgewater sits just north of downtown Miami and next door to Wynwood and the Design District, so an unmarked door bar is easier to reach than most people expect: roughly 5 minutes from Wynwood, 10 from Downtown and Brickell, and 15 from Miami Beach over the Julia Tuttle Causeway. Street parking on NE 1st Ave and the side streets is free in the evening. The Find Us page gets you the rest of the way.

We are open Wednesday and Thursday 6PM to 1AM, Friday and Saturday 6PM to 2AM, and closed Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. The room is 21+ with valid ID, and the dress code is smart casual with tropical flair, so Hawaiian shirts are encouraged and flip flops and athletic wear are not.

The part worth planning around is capacity. Forty-five seats is the whole room, and Friday and Saturday regularly sell out a week or more ahead. Walk-ins are welcome when there is space, but we cannot promise entry on a weekend. Booking is instant through SevenRooms for parties up to 6, and anything larger goes through private events.

So: pick your plate, pick your rum, and get the table locked in first. Reserve a seat at Kaona Room and let the door be the only thing you have to figure out on the night.